KYOTO –

What's in a name?

The Lower House by-election in Kyoto on Sunday showed that, when it comes to political parties, what you call yourself does matter. Especially if your party's name is that of a historic rival city voters and residents have traditionally disdained.

The poll to replace disgraced Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Kensuke Miyazaki in Kyoto's No. 3 district after he was forced to resign when extramarital affairs came to light, offered Osaka Ishin no Kai a chance to try to grow its Osaka base outside the city and prefecture. To this end, the party backed Natsue Mori, 34. She ran against Kenta Izumi, 41, who had the support of the Democratic Party.

Late on Sunday, Izumi was declared the winner of the race after beating Mori and another candidate, Yukiko Ono, who was backed by the conservative Party for Japanese Kokoro.

From March, when Osaka Ishin decided to field a candidate in the Kyoto No. 3 race, it faced a huge problem: its name. Although some party officials have said they prefer it be switched back to Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) after the Upper House election this summer, it appears candidates will be stuck with Osaka Ishin until then.

In the Kyoto campaign, which kicked off on April 12, it became clear that running a candidate under a party with Osaka in its name was problematic.

In an attempt to overcome the skepticism, Osaka Ishin leader Ichiro Matsui, who is also the governor, and Mori went for the existential, arguing that, no, Osaka as represented in the party name does not refer to the big, brash merchant city that cultured Kyoto people have long looked upon with distaste, if not disgust, but to a state of mind and a call to political action.

"In our party's name, the word 'Osaka' in hiragana does not denote the name of a place. It is, rather, symbolic of a political revolution occurring in Osaka," Matsui claimed during a campaign appearance on behalf of Mori in early April. The party ditched the standard kanji spelling of Osaka earlier in a bid to address the complaint.

On the other hand, Mikio Shimoji, an Osaka Ishin member in the Lower House from Okinawa, elected to try and sell the Osaka brand with a more down-to-earth, comparative advertising approach meant to appeal to voters' thirst for change, regardless of the label on the political bottle.

"Sapporo beer isn't just a beer sold in Sapporo. It's drunk nationwide," Shimoji told a rally just before the kickoff of Mori's campaign, arguing Osaka Ishin's geographical reach was not limited by its name.

Rival Democratic Party officials, including Kyoto-based Upper House member Tetsuro Fukuyama, took advantage of the local traditional dislike of all things Osaka by insisting Osaka's political revolution should stay in Osaka.

Despite the fact they are only about a half-hour apart on the fastest trains, the two cities have long been far apart in many ways.

Historically, residents in both places didn't want much to do with each other.

That's less the case today, especially among younger people, but Osaka's image is, in general, not that good among Kyoto's traditional types. At least not good enough to guarantee a large number of Kyoto voters will cast their ballots for an Osaka-named party in this summer's crucial Upper House election.

Beyond the problem of its name, however, there are two other barriers to persuading people in other parts of the country to vote for Osaka Ishin.

The first is the party platform, a mixture of neo-liberal, corporate-friendly policies that appeal to the merchant city of Osaka.

But in more rural, aging Japan, social welfare concerns, taking care of the elderly and public works spending of the kind Osaka Ishin doesn't always support are important to voters and local businesses.

Nor do voters, especially in tight-knit smaller communities, always share Osaka Ishin's belief their local bureaucracy is bad and needs further cuts to stimulate economic growth.

The second problem is that Osaka Ishin's Matsui lacks the charisma, independent image and feisty populist appeal of Osaka Ishin founder Toru Hashimoto, who retired from politics last December and is not expected to run in the Upper House election.

A former LDP member and ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, opposition parties in Osaka have long joked that Osaka Ishin is not a separate party but the Osaka faction of the LDP, or at least the Abe faction of the LDP, on most major national issues.

Thus, if the LDP loses big in July and Abe is replaced, many voters wonder what that will mean for the political fortunes of Osaka Ishin's politicians, regardless of whatever name it eventually chooses?

These are all problems party leaders are familiar with.

For the moment, though, their focus is now on how to sell the "Osaka brand name" to voters around the country who see Osaka not as symbol of a national political renaissance or even a national product with a local name, but as place too far removed from their own needs, and concerns, to put their trust in.